EDC 484/5 Home Page - Spring 2011

Agenda for Class 08: Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Classroom Discussions, Project Work, Etc

Learning Goals

  • Reflect on your teaching so far.
  • Identify ways to enhance your classroom discussion techniques.
  • Work on your Community Contributions.

Activities

  • Opening
    • Overview
    • Create your planning calendar for next week.
  • What have you learned about conducting classroom discussions?
    • Brainstorm
    • Research in Pairs
    • Discuss and Summarize your research with ONE or TWO nuggets. See discussion notes below.
    • Apply our nuggets by planning an upcoming post-lab discussion
  • Work in Groups on Community Contributions

Homework




Class Notes: Effective Classroom Discussions


Students were asked to work in pairs to choose a reading and summarize one or two ideas that they felt are worth sharing out.


Facilitating Good Classroom Discussions (Hassard)


  • Categories of Questions:
    • Low-inquiry
      • definition, example, summary, procedural
      • examples:
        • What is an example of...?
        • In your own words...
    • High inquiry
      • perform task, compare/contrast, predict/infer
      • examples:
        • Design a plan that would solve...
        • What evidence can you cite to support...?
        • What do you predict...?
  • Pause at various times and call on both volunteers and nonvolunteers
redirect questions to students - ask more high-inquiry questions than low-inquiry questions
  • prompt students and ask them to clarify their responses
  • reduce interference: don't repeat or answer your own questions

Llewellyn Reading Nuggets


1) Do not ask chorus questions - you want to ask questions that are pointed so that you can determine who actually knows the answer, and who does not. Also, by having students raise their hands you give them time to all think about it, and are able to address students that give the "wrong" answer

2) Rephrase the question - After posing a question, take time to rephrase it so that students that were not paying attention at first have the opportunity to still be involved, and also explain it in another way to allow more students to understand. Having a student rephrase a question you pose also lets you know that they undertstand what you are asking.



I. Kinds of Questions (Q)

low/high level Q's

direct/open ended Q's

Types of Q's: focusing (generate interest), prompting (hints/clues), probing (more complete)

II. Questioning Techniques

Plan key Q's and phrase clearly

Ask Q's that are appropriate to student ability level

Q's should be logical and sequencial

Students can respond to classmates answers

Vary the Q's

Relate Q's to students